


Kiss of the Snake

by PlagueClover



Category: Original Work
Genre: Anti-Hero, Challenge Response, Curses, Dark Fairy Tale Elements, Dark Fantasy, F/M, Fantasy, Female Protagonist, Goddesses, Human Sacrifice, Rituals, Sexual Assault, Short One Shot, Snakes, Witch - Freeform, Women In Power
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-15
Updated: 2019-07-15
Packaged: 2020-06-28 11:47:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,495
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19811671
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PlagueClover/pseuds/PlagueClover
Summary: A holy King reigns over a dying valley. He claims to speak for the goddess herself, and in her name, a witch is to be sacrificed. This is a short challenge fic about women with power.





	Kiss of the Snake

**Author's Note:**

> Extra warnings: IMPLIED Bestiality and paedophilia. 
> 
> A/N: This story is my answer to a weekly challenge on a discord server. The challenge was to write about women in positions of power.

**Kiss of the Snake**

It didn’t happen overnight. The great sin was decades in the making, from the moment a young warrior first placed the sacred crown of thorns atop his head.

He claimed to commune with the goddess of snakes. He claimed to control her, and for a while the lands flourished and the people thrived. He was worshipped as if he were the living embodiment of Serpentina herself. They gave him their children as wives. They gave him snakes and reptiles and he took these gifts with love to his bed.

Then, on one stormy new moon, Corine was born. She was born into turbulent seas and darkness, and following her cursed birth, the land began to dry. The life-giving rains that drenched their valley every summer ceased entirely. Their crops died, and their animals withered away to nothing.

As she grew, the people grew sick. A plague ravaged the dying land, ripping families apart, easily laying waste to the very young and very old. Yet through it all, their belief in their holy king was only strengthened. These horrors stood as proof that he was ordained by Serpentina herself. Proof that evil forces plotted to usurp him and sever her connection to the weary people of Serpent Valley.

They fought that evil the only way they knew how: with praying at the king’s feet, showering him with gifts. They gave him everything: their children, their wives, the food off their plates, and still they starved and grew sick.

Until Corine dared interfere. She had found a child. A skin and bones creature, dying in its own filth. What gall she had to bring it into her home when all had abandoned it. How wicked to give it clean water and a warm bed to die in. The worst part of her crime, the part that truly sealed her fate was that this child did not die at all. It lived. It recovered from the plague.

The people were terrified. If she had the power to heal, this plague must have been of her making.

That was why, on that most fateful of nights, they came for her. She knew they would. A vision showed her such. In the dead leaves that swirled about her hut deep in the deadest corner of the valley where only the snakes and mice dared roam.

Three men crashed through her door. “Witch!” They shouted at her as they pounced.

They bound her wrists with thorned vines. The very same that made up the King’s crown. The same he used to bind his wives for their first time in his bed. It was a sacred thing, though she suspected she was not to be married this night. These men meant this honour to be a last rite.

She grunted through the pain but did not struggle as they whisked her off into the night. They dragged her through the dead fields, through the quiet village, and into the sprawling palace of wood and stone where the holy king awaited.

He certainly was majestic. Corine could understand why the people found it so easy to take in his lies. He stood tall and wiry, even as his hair had grown white and time carved lines in his face, it didn’t weigh down his shoulders as it did most.

He stood on the altar, his shoulders draped with fox hides, a snake wound round one arm and the rest of his body bare.

“There she is,” the king murmured as he pressed his lips slowly along the snake’s body. “The witch that poisons our lands and taints our children with her black magic.”

“I can also speak with animals,” Corine said. “The snake you violate has words for you.”

The king sneered and one of his brutes backhanded her across the face. She grunted at the sharp sting. Blood flooded her mouth and she spat it out before she bothered to look at the king again.

“Still you insult Serpentina.” The king let out an incredulous laugh. “I might have shown you mercy, witch, had you shown humility. Lay her down. It is time.”

Corine let the brutes drag her to the altar. They roughly forced her down on her belly with her bound wrists resting painfully against her back. The stone of the altar was cold and uncomfortable against her bare chest, but then the king stepped over her. He straddled her backside, putting all his weight down on her and making it hurt so much worse.

“Sweet Serpentina,” the king murmured to the snake. Corine could feel his erection twitch against her bare skin as he began to rock up and down.

The brutes knelt around them and began to chant.

Corine felt the smooth, cool body of the snake slither across her back, up her shoulders. Its tongue flickered at her ear.

The king rocked against her harder and harder as the chanting grew in pitch. His lust swelled as he brandished the ceremonial serpent blade. “I brought you this wretched thing that flaunts her dissent. Let her soul turn to ash! Let her flesh sate your righteous hunger!”

“Serpentina!” The brutes screamed at the ceiling. “Serpentina!”

In answer, a darkness began to seep through the cracks in the walls. Even as the king continued to dance against her and his henchmen continued to scream the great goddess’ name, the darkness grew thicker and spread farther by the second.

Did they not see it? Were they so blinded by their delusions? Corine watched, fear trembling through her shoulders as the growing darkness snuffed out the candlelight one-by-one. It crept across the floor to lick at her feet and spread up the brute’s knees.

The first one to notice jerked to his feet with a startled scream. He stumbled backwards, right into the darkness, and it swallowed him whole.

The others stopped chanting. The king stumbled to his feet as the other henchmen jumped onto the altar with them. Now the darkness surrounded them. Where the first henchman disappeared, the shadows swirled into the form of a woman, flesh black as obsidian and reptilian eyes bright as liquid gold.

The two living henchmen looked to the king with fear and heavy expectation. His eyes darted back and forth, flashing between terror, doubt, and hope.

He took a shaky step over Corine, towards the shadow woman. “Serpentina... My love...”

“Why,” Serpentina hissed, “does my daughter bleed?”

Confusion clouded the king’s eyes. “What...? We have many daughters, my love.”

Serpentina sneered. She took a step towards the King. In a low, dry voice so powerful, Corine could feel it in her bones, the goddess asked, “Who are you?”

Silence fell over the palace. The faces of the brutes paled as realization sunk in. They dropped to their knees, begging forgiveness, but the king... The king’s brows furrowed. His eyes hardened and he balled his hands into fists.

“This is not Serpentina,” he growled with great indignation deepening his voice. “This is a trick. This is the witch trying to turn you against me! Are you so easily fooled?!”

That ridiculous man. He would deny the goddess he claimed to serve even as she stood before him?

Corine roared with frustration. She yanked an arm free. Pain shot through her wrists and hands as the thorns gouged a dozen deep cuts through her skin. She grabbed the ceremonial knife, leapt to her feet, and stabbed it into the King’s gut.

He stiffened. His eyes fell to her hand, and as he watched in shock, she slashed the knife up as far as she could get it. As his flesh split slowly open and his innards spilled to the altar, the darkness began to recede. A smile blinked across Serpentina’s face, and then she was gone.

The king fell to his knees, shaky and pale as he desperately tried to gather up his unspooled intestines. The darkness cleared and where the first henchmen fell, there were only bones.

Corine plucked the crown of thorns from the king’s head. She tossed it into the mess of his innards and stomped it in as he wailed in pain.

“You made him,” She growled at the henchmen. “All that this liar King took from you, and you allowed it.”

“Please,” one of the henchmen begged. “We thought... We did not know.”

“Get up,” she barked. They obeyed. “Return the children to their families and release the animals. There will be no more shattered souls in my fucking valley.”

The henchmen dared not argue. As they hurried off and swept the doorway curtain aside, they froze. Corine cringed. What in blazes was happening now? She wandered over to join them, and found the skies dark. Too dark. Where were the stars?

And then it began to flash with long streaks of lightning and she realized with confused hope that those were clouds. It had been so long since she saw clouds...

It began to rain.

**Author's Note:**

> We have a casual discord chatroom for fanfic and original writers. It's just a place to chill and help each other with our current projects. You're welcome to join us!
> 
> https://discord.gg/p73UUJX


End file.
